Packrafting: A Beginner's Guide: Buying, Learning & Exploring

By Chris Scott

Packrafts are rugged, portable rafts, small enough to attach under a rucksack, but stable on the water to reassure first time paddlers. Weighing from 1-3 kilos, they open up a whole new world of amphibious adventuring, from navigating easily accessible waterways to discovering more challenging rivers and lochs only reachable on foot or bicycle. Packrafting: A Beginners' Guide is a perfect introduction to the game-changing recreational opportunities opened up by packrafting. It takes you through the different types and features of packrafts to ensure that you buy a boat that is right for you and have the right gear to use with it. It clearly explains the basic paddling skills and how to safely evaluate risks on the water. It also introduces the different types of adventures you can undertake with your packraft, from paddling a local canal or river to lashing a bicycle over the bow or using a packable sail to traverse open water. The book is comprehensively illustrated with over 120 colour photographs making it easy to understand and clear to follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fernhurst Books Limited
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781912621552

Chris Scott

Chris Scott is a New York–based chef and the previous owner of Brooklyn Commune and Butterfunk Kitchen, both in Brooklyn, as well as Birdman Juke Joint in Bridgeport, CT, which celebrates Black farmers and agriculture. He is the current owner of Butterfunk Biscuit, which highlights heritage baking at its finest. He was also a finalist on Top Chef, season 15. He lives in New Jersey with his family.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

If you enjoy exploring wild places, a packraft will be a game changer. A boat that’s genuinely portable yet robust and easy to paddle transforms the way you approach outdoor adventures. The clue’s in the name: you can pack up your raft in minutes, hike for hours or days, then reinflate effortlessly at the water’s edge before paddling onwards. On calm water you don’t need any special skills, but as with all paddle boats, it’s important to understand the risks, especially on fast-flowing rivers and exposed crossings.

The picture left was taken at the start of an 80-mile adventure along a wild river in the Australian outback. Dropped off at a remote airstrip, we carried everything we needed for a week, a journey only made viable with packrafts. Nearer home, the Scottish Highlands are where packrafting adventures jump off the map. Obscure lochs and meandering rivers are no longer obstacles but new byways, enabling easy or challenging routes limited only by your imagination.

At a glance, a 3-kilo packraft may resemble a cheap vinyl beach toy, but it’s the durable fabric and hand-made construction that puts these boats in a class of their own. This enables higher pressures: the key to a responsive boat and an enjoyable paddling experience which won’t end with a hiss on brushing past a twig. There are some compromises – if you’re hoping for a nippy glorified kayak, you may be disappointed. On flat water packrafts are relatively slow and easily affected by winds. Above all, it’s the places you can access which sets packrafts apart.

Paddling is also a low-impact way of enjoying the outdoors. Combining walking and even cycling are all part of getting the most from your lightweight boat. Packrafting: A Beginner’s Guide is crammed with ideas, hard-won knowledge, tips and safety advice to show you how to get started. Once you’ve embraced the full potential of packrafting, you’ll look at the outdoors with completely new eyes.

Chris Scott

inflatablekayaksandpackrafts.com

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ABOUT PACKRAFTS

PACKRAFTS & PACKBOATS

In the world of paddle boats the packraft occupies a tiny enthusiasts’ niche. Though it’s how I came to it, the crossover between inflatable kayaks (IK) is slim because, while they’re as convenient to store and transport, the lightest decent IK weighs three or four times more than a packraft.

And compared to IK users, packrafters are a different bunch too: more active and maybe even adventurous, they’re more likely to have come from a backpacking or mountain biking background, than kayaking or canoeing.

At first sight a packraft on the water is not so arresting: a rotund mini-raft that doesn’t so much knife through the water as bob along in the breeze. What does capture the imagination is seeing the same boat easily carried under one arm, or rolled up and lashed to a backpack or around a paddle shaft in a couple of minutes before the user heads off into the wilds on foot or by bike.

A PACKRAFT FOR YOU

Compared to other paddle sports, packrafting is still very much a cottage industry so you’re unlikely to see one, far less a selection of brands at an outdoor sports outlet. Prices start from just £330/€400, although double that widens your options greatly. In the end it might just be down to colour, price and availability.

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The best-known brands in North America are Alpacka who led the way, and Kokopelli (now China-made). In Europe you’ll find both, as well as Anfibio in Germany (Chinese-made), Russian-made Nortik, and unapologetically all-Chinese and widely distributed MRS. Other popular brands include French-made Mekong, Ukrainian Neris distributed in Europe and a couple of other East European brands. In the US, Aire, Advanced Elements and NRS also make at least one packraft.

Online, unbranded bargains on Alibaba can be tempting – are they unbranded ‘left-overs’ or shoddy knock-offs? Chinese manufacture can be a minefield but the branded, Chinese-made packrafts I’ve owned or tried easily match the quality of my old Alpackas. It’s just a packraft made of carefully hand-assembled sections of fabric that you can even make yourself (p8).

PACKRAFTING GLOSSARY

Bow/Stern: Front/back ends of a boat.

Cockpit: Where you sit, usually open.

Deck: Optional cover to keep water out.

Hardshell: Hard plastic kayak/canoe.

IK: Inflatable kayak.

PFD: Personal flotation device (‘lifejacket’).

Portage: Carrying boat round an obstacle.

Psi: pounds/inch2.14.5psi = 1 bar

Put-in/Take-out: River entry/exit points.

Rapid: ‘Whitewater’ (more on p16).

Skeg: aka: tracking fin.

TPU: Thermoplastic polyurethane; heat weldable PU-coated nylon fabric. PVC is an alternative.

TiZip: Popular brand of airtight zippers.

Trim: Bow-to-stern level. Horizontal is best.

Yawing: The normal side-to-side movement.

THE INVENTION OF PACKRAFTING

The idea for a modern packable raft followed the invention of ‘Mackintosh’ rubberised canvas. In the 1840s Peter Halkett, an enterprising British naval officer, produced a ‘marine contrivance’ (A) designed to aid exploration of the Canadian Arctic. A century ahead of his time, his 3.4-kilo, four-chamber raft doubled as a waterproof cloak and though it failed commercially, Halkett clearly had a contemporary, ‘Backpacking Light’ mentality towards multi-functional gear.

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Larger rubberised canvas vessels ensued, but portable rafts sank into a century-long dark age until surplus WW2